Conventional processing steps of silver halide color photographic materials for prints include a water washing step, etc. Over the years, some techniques have been suggested for the purpose of reducing the amount of water used, such as the amount of washing water, etc., in view of environmental conservation, water resources, or cost. For example, in S. R. Goldwasser, "Water Flow Rates in Immersion-Washing of Motion Picture Film" in Journal of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, Vol. 64, pages 248 to 253 (May, 1955), a method for reducing the amount of washing water by means of utilizing multistage water washing tanks and countercurrent water is described.
Also, for the purpose of omitting the water washing step or extremely reducing the amount of washing water, a technique using a multistage countercurrent stabilizing process, as described, e.g., in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 8543/82 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), is known.
These methods are effective in saving water, and have been applied to various types of automatic developing machines. However, it has been found that washing water into which ions from a bleaching step and thiosulfates from a fixing step are introduced during processing is very unstable, and the reduction in a wide range of the amount of washing water leads to prolonged remaining time of washing water and results in causing a problem in that various precipitates, floating scum, and coloration are generated.
These precipitates and floating scum create many problems. For example, they adhere on photographic light-sensitive materials and choke up or stain filters in an automatic developing (processing) machine.
In order to solve these troubles, various methods for preventing precipitation in washing water are proposed. For instance, in L. E. West, Phot. Sci. and Eng., Vol. 9, pages 344 to 359 (1965), there are described the addition of chelating agents and sterilizers to washing water.
Further, the addition of various antimold agents are described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 8542/82, 105145/83, 157244/82 and 4050/86, etc. However, these compounds have some problems in that they have poor solubility, that they are troublesome in view of their relative lack of safety, that they have only insufficient effects on preventing generation of floating scum, precipitates, and coloration, or that they harm stability of images formed and, therefore, satisfactory results cannot be obtained.
Moreover, as a result of our investigations it has found that when color photographic light-sensitive materials for prints are subjected to processing with saving water, color fading of magenta dyes formed in prints is accelerated during preservation of the prints at high temperature and high humidity.